Gift  of  the  President 

Methodist  Prayers. 


ADDRESS 

by 

DR.  NICHOLAS  MURRAY  BUTLER 

President  of  Columbia  Univereity  in  the  City  of  New  York 
TO  THE  MEMBERS  OK 

THE  UNION  LEAGUE  OF  PHILADELPH1 

AT 

FOUNDERS'  DAY  CELEBRATION 

HELD 

SATURDAY  EVENING,  NOVEMBER  27,  1915 


ADDRESS 


15  V 

DR.  NICHOLAS  MURRAY  BUTLER 


Mr.  President  and  Members  of  The  Union  League: 
Your  cordial  reception  makes  me  feel  very  much 
at  home.  These  are  stirring  times  in  which  we  live, 
and  it  is  no  small  privilege  for  an  American  to  have 
the  opportunity  of  facing  such  a  company  of  fellow  % 
Americans,  or  for  a  convinced  and  life-long  Repub- 
lican to  have  the  privilege  of  facing  this  company 
of  Republicans.  [Applause.] 

It  was  my  lot  to  be  born  after  the  Civil  War  had 
begun  and  for  me  the  name,  the  face  and  the  repute 
of  Abraham  Lincoln  belong  not  to  memory  but 
to  imagination.  Yet  I  was  brought  up  under  the 
very  shadow  of  his  name,  of  his  fame  and  of  his 
work.  The  events  and  circumstances  to  which 
such  effective  allusion  has  been  made  by  your 
President  were  among  the  earliest  lessons  that  it 
was  my  fortune  to  learn.  It  seemed  to  me  then, 
and  it  seems  to  me  now,  that  Abraham  Lincoln 
left  to  every  American  born  after  him  a  legacy  in 
the  form  of  a  direct  injunction  to  love  his  country, 


to  study  its  needs,  to  make  himself  familiar  with 
its  policies  and  its  problems,  and  to  labor  with 
those  like-minded  with  himself  for  the  advance- 
ment of  all  of  these.  Therefore,  I  make  no  excuse 
to  any  one  for  having  been  actively  engaged  in  the 
work  of  politics  since  I  was  old  enough,  or  even  before 
1  was  old  enough  to  be  permitted  by  law  to  do  so. 
[Applause.] 

The  era  of  Lincoln,  of  the  Civil  War,  and  of 
nation-building — that  great  classic  era  in  the  history 
of  the  western  world  and  of  all  mankind — is  closed. 
The  problems  that  confronted  the  founders  and 
the  builders  of  our  nation  are  still  our  problems, 
but  they  are  presented  to  us  in  a  different  form. 
We  are  no  longer  a  young  people,  but  a  compara- 
tively old  and  well-established  one.  We  are,  thank 
God,  a  united  people.  We  have  solved,  let  us  hope 
forever  and  finally,  the  problem  of  building  a  single 
great  nation  out  of  a  group  of  federated  states  with 
diverse  populations,  with  conflicting  economic  needs 
and  desires,  and  we  have  opened  our  arms  to  the 
whole  wide  world  that  it  may  enter  in  and  share 
with  us  and  with  our  children  the  shelter  and  the 
protection  of  this  noble  structure.  When  so  much 
has  been  done  we  find  ourselves  confronted  with 
the  problems  of  an  older  people  and  of  a  better- 
established  civilization.  It  is  no  longer  necessary 
for  us  to  find  men  of  energy  and  ambition  to  explore 
a  continent,  to  bridge  rivers,  to  fell  forests  or  to 
build  railways  across  the  desert;  those  are  the 
problems  of  a  new  people  and  we  solved  those 
problems  in  the  generation  that  followed  1850  and 
4 


1860.    Then  came  the  problems  incident  to  a  more 
concentrated  political  and  economic  life— the  prob- 
lems of  capital  and  labor,  the  problems  of  the  growth 
of  great  corporate  wealth,  of  the  organization  of 
business  and  of  the  development  of  public  utilities, 
as  well  as  the  relation  of  all  these  to  government,' 
both  state  and  national.     During  all  this  second 
period,  which  was  shorter  than  the  first,  very  intense 
and  tremendously  important,  abounding  in  prob- 
lems that  touched  the  interests  and  convictions 
of  every  citizen,  we  were  still  a  self-centered  people. 
We  had  foreign  relations,  but  they  were  of  minor 
importance.     They  occupied  the  attention  of  the 
President,  of  the  Department  of  State  and  of  the 
Senate,  but  beyond  that  they  hardly  existed  for 
the  great  mass  of  our  American  population.  But 
now,  in  a  twinkling  of  an  eye,  the  outlook  that 
confronts  America  has  changed  and  we  are  about 
to  enter,  perhaps  it  would  be  correct  to  say  we 
have  already  entered,  upon  a  new  and  third  period 
of  our  political  development  and  of  our  intellectual 
and  moral  preoccupation.    We  are  now  confronted 
with  the  fact,  borne  in  upon  us  in  a  thousand  ways, 
that  steam,  electricity,  the  use  of  the  air,  the  develop- 
ment of  modern  industry  and  finance,  have  con- 
spired to  destroy  distance  and  to  eliminate  time, 
and  that  these  have  bound  the  whole  world  together 
in  a  new  and  hitherto  unsuspected  sort  of  inter- 
dependence.    Out  of  that  interdependence  of  the 
nations,  an  interdependence  of  our  nation  with 
other  nations  of  the  world,  comes  the  new  series 
of  problems  for  the  consideration  and  the  solution 
5 


of  which  this  nation  must  insistently  and  thought- 
fully prepare. 

The  old  world  order  changed  when  the  sun  set 
on  Friday,  July  31,  1914.  The  old  international 
order  passed  away  as  suddenly,  as  unexpectedly 
and  as  completely  as  if  it  had  been  wiped  out  by 
a  gigantic  Hood,  by  a  great  tempest,  or  by  a  volcanic 
eruption.  The  old  world  order  died  with  the  setting 
of  that  day's  sun  and  a  new  world  order  is  being 
born  while  I  speak,  with  birth  pangs  so  terrible 
that  it  seems  almost  incredible  that  life  could  come 
out  of  such  fearful  suffering  and  such  overwhelming 
sorrow. 

What  has  America  to  do  with  it  all?    All  these 
terrible  clashings  and  crashings  are  on  the  other 
side  of  the  world,  from  which  we  are  separated  by 
a  great  ocean.     How  do  these  matters  affect  us, 
secure  in  our  protection   across  three  thousand 
miles  of  sea,  living  under  other  political  institutions 
and  under  the  dominance  of  other  political  ideas 
and  with  different  economic  and  social  interests? 
Ask  the  cotton  grower  in  the  South.     Ask  the 
copper  miner  in  the  far  Southwest.    Ask  the  lumber- 
man on  Puget  Sound.    Ask  the  banker  in  Phila- 
delphia, in  New  York,  in  Boston  or  in  Chicago. 
Ask  any  one  of  these  whether  the  European  war 
affects  him  and  how,  and  get  his  answer.  Ask 
the  student  of  civil  and  political  liberty.    Ask  th; 
trained  liberal  who  believes  in  human  rights,  in 
the  free  development  of  small  nations,  in  the  sanctity 
of  international  obligations,  and  in  the  supremacy  of 
international  law.     Ask  any  one  of  these  whether 
6 


he  knows  that  there  is  a  war  on  the  other  side  of 
the  world  and  whether  it  affects  him'  and  his  interests 
and  get  his  answer. 

Mr.  President,  the  present  state  of  the  law  is 
precisely  what  Senator  Knox  described  it  to  be  just 
now,  but  I  believe  that  we  must  amend  that  law, 
or  so  reinterpret  it  as  properly  and  fully  to  meet 
new  and  changed  conditions.  [Applause.] 

In  this  new  outlook  that  confronts  us  we  are  not 
called  upon,  as  I  see  it,  to  depart  in  principle  or  in 
practice  from  sound  American  policy,  but  we  are 
called  upon  I  think  to  consider  whether,  as  the 
keeper  of  the  conscience  of  democracy,  as  the  most 
powerful  exponents  of  political  and  civil  liberty 
on  the  globe,  we  are  not  in  some  sense  our  brothers' 
keepers,  and  whether  we  have  not  some  political 
and  moral  contribution  to  make  to  a  stricken  and 
distracted  and  overturned  world.  [Applause.]  I 
would  not  have  the  people  of  these  United  States 
forget  the  injunction  of  Washington.  I  would  not 
have  them  depart  from  the  path  of  established 
policy  that  has  been  trodden  so  long  and  on  the 
whole  so  wisely.  I  would  not  have  them  make 
an  alliance,  entangling  or  otherwise,  with  any 
single  nation  or  any  group  of  nations  on  the  globe. 
But  I  would  have  them  enter  into  such  relations 
of  intimacy  and  influence  with  every  nation  that 
the  spirit  and  convictions  which  animate  and  per- 
meate the  American  people  might  be  made  a  con- 
tribution to  the  world's  civilization  when  this  war 
ends.  [Applause.]  I  would  endeavor  to  show  to 
Europe  how  clear  across  the  sea  we  have  solved 
7 


and  are  solving  some  problems  that  are  in  kind 
their  problems.  I  would  try  to  show  to  Europe 
that  whatever  may  be  the  difficulties  and  the  con- 
flicts which  grow  out  of  differences  of  race  and  of 
creed  and  of  language,  those  difficulties  are  only 
increased  by  political  repression,  while  they  are 
decreased  by  an  extension  of  civil  and  political 
liberty.  [Applause.]  I  would  try  to  show  that 
on  the  whole,  and  despite  the  dangers  and  difficulties 
and  the  many  and  obvious  embarrassments  which 
accompany  it,  a  national  policy  of  freedom,  of 
hospitality  and  of  equal  opportunity  solves  more 
problems  than  it  leaves  unsolved,  and  that  on  the 
whole  it  solves  more  political  problems  than  any 
other  alternative  policy  that  has  yet  been  pre- 
sented for  the  government  of  men.  [Applause.] 
I  would  not  interfere  for  a  moment  with  the  internal 
concerns  of  any  European  nation  or  with  their  just 
ambitions,  their  alliances  and  their  rivalries,  but 
at  a  time  like  this  I  would  not  throw  away  the 
lesson  of  a  hundred  and  twenty-five  years  of  life 
and  government  under  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States.  [Applause.]  I  would  make  a  world 
figure  of  Washington.  I  would  make  world  figures 
of  Hamilton  and  Jefferson,  of  Marshall  and  Webster. 
I  would  make  a  world  figure  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 
I  would  make  their  names,  their  faces,  their  public 
acts  and  the  great  tendencies  and  institutions  that 
they  organized  and  represented  the  property  of 
the  whole  civilized  world  for  the  benefit  of  all  man- 
kind. For  this  or  for  any  such  policy  of  inter- 
national influence  this  nation  must  prepare. 
8 


There  is  much  talk  among  us  of  preparedness 
and  justly  enough;  for  while  we  fix  our  eyes  on 
the  stars  we  must  keep  our  feet  on  the  firm  earth. 
[Applause.]  We  must  deal  not  with  facts  as  we 
would  like  them  to  be,  but  with  facts  as  they  are. 
[Applause.]  But  there  is  an  aspect  of  this  important 
question  that  has  hardly  been  touched,  and  I  have 
not  yet  seen  it  even  adverted  to  by  any  spokesman 
of  the  present  administration.  That  question  is 
this:  What  is  to  be  the  object  of  your  preparedness? 
What  are  to  be  the  policies  that  you  are  going  to 
teach,  to  defend  and  to  extend  over  the  earth? 
What  are  to  be  the  ideals  that  you  are  going  to 
hold  up  before  yourselves  and  then  before  the  other 
nations  of  the  earth?  Armies  and  navies  are  not 
ends;  they  are  means.  But  means  to  what  end? 
For  what  are  we  going  to  prepare?  Are  we  going 
to  prepare  to  make  this  nation  first  a  model  nation 
home  and  then  a  model  nation  abroad?  If  we  are 
going  to  do  this  then  we  have  a  policy.  If  we  are 
not  going  to  do  this  then  we  have  no  policy  but  only 
a  proposal  for  expenditure.  [Applause.] 

Our  American  ideals  are  not  vague  or  uncertain. 
They  have  been  stated  for  us  in  language  that  the 
whole  world  can  read,  in  words  that  will  remain 
forever  familiar  where  the  history  of  freedom  is 
read  and  studied.  They  have  been  written  for  us 
particularly  in  four  great  historic  documents.  You 
will  find  them  in  the  opening  paragraphs  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  You  will  find  them 
in  the  preamble  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States.  You  will  find  them  in  Washington's  fare- 
9 


well  address  to  the  American  people.  You  will 
find  them  put  with  all  the  terseness  of  classic  litera- 
ture in  the  immortal  address  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
on  the  battlefield  of  Gettysburg  over  yonder.  Those 
great  documents  have  stated  for  us  the  aims,  the 
ideals  and  the  purposes  of  this  government,  as  well 
as  the  aims,  the  ideals  and  the  purposes  of  the 
people  in  founding  and  in  maintaining  this  govern-" 
ment.  Mr.  President,  it  is  for  a  fuller  compre- 
hension of  those  aims,  those  ideals  and  those  purposes, 
for  a  more  complete  carrying  out  of  them  at  home, 
and  for  a  more  effective  teaching  of  them  abroad 
that  we  must  prepare.  We  must  prepare  under 
the  leadership  of  those  who,  by  experience,  by 
training,  by  discipline  and  by  eonviction  are  able 
to  help  us  set  our  feet  in  these  new  paths.  For  it 
is  as  true  today  as  it  was  when  the  prophet  first 
said  it,  that  where  there  is  no  vision  the  people 
perish.  [Applause.] 

One  great  lesson  of  the  war  in  Europe  is  that 
the  old  international  order  is  a  failure;  that  the 
order  of  alliances  and  ententes,  of  secret  under- 
standings and  dynastic  arrangements  has  broken 
down,  and  that  the  international  policies  of  a  Palmer- 
ston,  of  a  Disraeli,  or  of  a  Bismarck,  splendid  as 
they  were  in  their  own  day  have  been  outgrown 
and  cast  aside  forever.  The  world  is  ready  for  a 
step  forward.  It  is  ready  for  a  step  forward  along 
the  path  which  the  American  people  have  already 
trod,  and  which  this  people  knows  well.  It  is  ready 
for  a  step  along  the  path  of  federation  and  for  a 
new  application  of  the  federative  principle  which 
10 


has  made  this  nation  one.  This  problem  is  in  some 
form  soon  to  be  worked  out,  for  its  solution,  in 
whole  or  in  part,  will  be  the  next  great  step  to  be 
taken  in  the  world's  international  policies.  To  aid 
in  this  no  nation  can  possibly  make  larger  contri- 
bution than  our  own.  Yes,  gentlemen,  surely  the 
outlook  before  us  has  changed! 

Since  Mr.  Joseph  Chamberlain  returned  to  England 
after  his  famous  trip  to  South  Africa,  he  told  the 
English  people  that  the  time  had  come  when  they 
must  learn  to  think  imperially.    So  it  may  now  be 
said  that  the  time  has  come  when  the  American 
people  must  learn  to  think  internationally.    We  must 
learn  to  think  in  terms  of  our  relations  with  the 
whole  world,  and  we  must  learn  to  think  of  other 
peoples  than  ourselves  with  such  sympathy,  with 
such  kindliness  and  with  such  understanding  as 
will  enable  us  to  appreciate  the  point  of  view,  the 
opinions  and  the  institutions  of  those  whose  experi- 
ences have  been  different  from  our  own.    I  like  to 
think  that  the  hand  of  fate  has  brought  to  us  out 
of  this  terrible  war  a  new  and  unexpected  call  to 
.  achievement;    first  at  home  in  putting  our  own 
house  in  order,  and  next  abroad  in  teaching  the 
peoples  of  the  world  a  lesson  that  the  founders 
and  the  fathers  have  taught  us.    Mr.  Bryce  than 
whom  we  have  no  better  or  wiser  friend,  told  us 
years  ago  that  withal  we  must  learn  to  cultivate 
a  becoming  modesty.    He  pointed  out  to  us  that 
there  was  one  peculiar  difficulty  in  government 
by  public  opinion,  and  that  is  that  public  opinion 
tends  to  be  very  sure  of  itself,  to  be  very  proud 


of  its  findings  and  decisions,  and  to  be  very  certain 
that  its  judgment,  however  incidental  or  however 
temporary,  is  entirely  correct.  The  only  way  in 
which  we  can  ensure  ourselves  against  undue  self- 
esteem,  which  would  be  our  undoing  at  home, 
and  which  would  add  to  our  undoing  abroad,  is 
by  perpetual  and  persistent  reexamination  of  our 
own  principles,  our  own  aims,  our  own  purposes 
and  by  conferring  and  consulting  together  as  to 
how  best  we  can  advance  this  nation  in  paths  of 
justice  and  of  liberty. 

We  have  great  economic  problems  that  are  in 
part  internal  and  that  are  in  part  international. 
There  are  signs  that  this  new  international  era  of 
which  I  speak  is  going  to  help  us  to  solve  some  of 
our  internal  economic  problems.  There  are  some 
gentlemen  of  eminence  who  are  not  quite  so  sure 
of  their  formulas  as  they  were  three  years  ago. 
Some  gentlemen  have  discovered  that  for  them 
at  least  the  revival  of  business,  quickly  stimulated 
by  this  war,  was  a  blessing  not  very  much  disguised. 
[Laughter.]  They  have  discovered  that  they  have 
presented  us  with  fiscal  legislation  which,  if  left 
to  itself  in  ordinary  times,  would  have  made  it 
even  more  necessary  than  appears  to  be  the  case 
at  present  to  find  a  method  by  which  to  transfer 
liabilities  to  the  column  of  assets  in  the  monthly 
statement  of  the  Treasurer  of  the  United  States. 
[Laughter  and  applause.]  It  may  be  that  this 
process  of  education  is  not  going  to  expend  itself 
entirely  on  foreign  peoples.  It  may  prove  to  be 
the  case  that  there  are  good  learners  and  good 


pupils  here  at  home,  and  that  as  a  people  we  shall 
see  before  very  long  that  the  fundamental  essentials 
of  sound  economic  policy  have  not  been  met  by  the 
legislation  of  the  past  three  years.  [Applause.] 

We  cannot  depend  upon  the  heightened  tempera- 
ture of  war  fever  to  keep  us  warm  forever.  There 
will  come  a  time  when  our  business  temperature 
will  fall  to  normal  or  below  unless  there  be  nutri- 
ment upon  which  to  keep  our  body-politic  warm 
and  in  good  health. 

We  have  got  to  face  under  these  new  conditions 
the  world  old  problem  of  how  to  provide  justly  for 
equal  opportunity,  and  how  to  provide  an  economic 
basis  for  individual  existence  in  order  that  men 
may  be  able  to  live  at  all.    It  is  hardly  worth  while 
to  preach  ideals  of  government  to  a  starving  man. 
We  must  provide,  first,  wisely,  justly  and  securely 
for  our  internal  economic  organization,  in  order 
that  we  may  be  able  to  do  these  new  international 
deeds  of  which  I  speak.     In  other  words,  while 
our  whole  problem,  national  and  international,  is 
bound  up  together  it  becomes  immensely  larger 
and  immensely  more  important  than  it  has  ever 
been  before,  because  we  have  now  discovered  these 
innumerable  points  of  contact  with  other  nations 
and  we  see  the  meaning  and  significance  on  one 
side  of  the  world  of  some  public  act  or  economic 
policy  that  has  its  origin  on  the  other.    This  is 
all  a  part  of  the  task  that  I  call  learning  to  think 
internationally.    It  will  affect  our  domestic  prob- 
lems and  our  domestic  policies,  as  well  as  our  foreign 
problems  and  our  foreign  policies. 

13 


Unless  I  mistake  the  signs  of  the  times,  this 
nation  is  crying  out  for  leadership.  It  is  crying 
out  for  a  voice  that  will  give  expression  to  its  political 
conviction  and  to  its  moral  purpose  in  tones  that 
every  American  will  understand.  [Prolonged  ap- 
plause.] Unless  I  mistake  the  signs  of  the  times, 
the  American  people  would  like  a  leadership  whose 
ear  is  not  continually  fastened  to  the  ground.  We 
wish,  we  need,  we  long  for  a  determined,  clear  and 
sympathetic  voics  that  will  do  for  our  day  and 
generation  what  Abraham  Lincoln  did  for  his. 
[Applause.]  A  voice  that  will  look  down  into  the 
hearts  of  the  plain  people,  that  will  know  the  condi- 
tions that  influence  their  lives,  that  will  under- 
stand the  motives  that  guide  their  action,  that  will 
sympathize  with  their  ambitions,  with  their  diffi- 
culties and  with  their  failures,  and  that  will  call 
them  up  to  the  high  places  of  the  earth  as  did  those 
voices  that  called  our  fathers  up  to  their  great 
achievement.  Give  us  leadership.  Give  us  a  mind 
to  seek,  a  heart  to  feel  and  a  voice  to  proclaim  what 
the  American  people  of  this  day  and  this  generation 
aspire  to  do  at  home  and  abroad.  [Prolonged 
applause.]  /  j 


i  v 


f 


t 


Lest  We  Forget. 


"\^hen  gallant  sons  of  liberty  were 

struggling-  for  the  right 
Against  the  hordes  on  Southern  soil 

arrayed  in  treacherous  might, 
When  whistling  whips  and  clanking 

chains,  enmeshed  four  million  slaves, 
And  battlefields  were  thickly  strewn 

with  loyal,  true  and  brave; 
When  smoke  clouds  from  the  cannon's 

mouth,  obscured  the  light  of  day  — 
I  ask  you,  fellow  countrymen: 
What  role  did  England  play? 

'Twas  England's  aid  to  treason  that 
prolongued  the  war  for  years 

'T  was  England's  stand  that  drenched 
this  Land  in  floods  of  blood  and 
tears; 

'T  was  England  that  equipped  the  ships 
that  preyed  on  union  trade, 

And  loyal  sailors  sleep  in  the  deep,  in 
in  the  graves  that  England  made. 

And  now  the  lion's  hide  is  rent,  and 
Britain  calls  for  aid, 

Remember  fellow  countrymen, 

The  role  that  England  played. 

The   news   had  hardly  reached  the 

North  of  gallant  Sumpter's  fall 
When   German   boys,   by  thousands, 

rallied  to  freedom's  call; 
There  was  no  doubting  of  their  faith, 

no  question  of  their  stand, 
This  nation  surely  owes  a  debt,  to 

these  mens  fatherland. 
While    Englishmen    filled  treason's 

ranks,  the  German  sought  the  Eagle, 
They  were  no   Teuton  Tories  then, 

They    fought    "mit"    Schurz  and 

Sigel. 

And  now,  at  last,  the  time  has  come 

when  this  debt  can  be  paid, 
Remember,  fellow  countrymen, 
The  role  the  Germans  played. 

Louis  B.  Cone. 
Fond  du  Eac,  Wis. 


